The fabric of our local rural communities could be severely impacted by conversion of sheep and beef farming to forestry if Government doesn’t change its combination of policies on the Emissions Trading Scheme and its stance on the upcoming Zero Carbon Bill. Submissions for this Bill closed on July 16.

In the Tararua District it is likely sheep and beef farms will be largely replaced by carbon farming and our farm service industries will evaporate.

New Zealand forestry is dominated by overseas investors who will likely dominate carbon farming.

“Once an investor has optimised all the benefits from the first cycle of carbon-sink, the land then becomes a carbon and financial liability,” says Keith Woodford, primary consultant at Agrifood Systems. . .

“The New Zealand dairy sector is committed to playing our part in the transition to a low-emissions economy, alongside the rest of the country,” said Dr Mackle.

“We are acutely aware of the importance of looking after the environment and maintaining sustainable and competitive businesses too.

“We know there are costs for our farmers but there are also costs for global inaction. That’s why we are seeking pragmatic and prudent policies that enable action and support our farmers to play their part on climate change. . .

We farm South Devon breeding cows. It’s a really cool story that the Farmer owners was the first woman to do AI tech course to change a Angus herd to South Devon beef herd. Developed the herd into one of the best in country. We have AI’ed beef Hfrs for future sire bulls pic.twitter.com/3S9fzCYnS2

Truffles are among the most valuable and sought-after of culinary delights.

For a Paengaroa couple, the air of mystery that surrounds the rare fungi has become a healthy obsession that is now a huge influence on their lives.

Colin and Maureen Binns began creating their truffiere – a grove of trees where truffles are cultivated – in 2008. In 2015 they harvested their first Black Périgord truffles.

Last year the truffiere produced around 3kg of truffles during the two-month season, which starts in June. This season, with the help of truffle dog Jed who sniffs them out, they have unearthed around 20kg. . .

In my last twopieces for CapX, I sketched out the miserable existence of our ancestors in the pre-industrial era. My focus was on life in the city, a task made easier by the fact that urban folk, thanks to higher literacy rates, have left us more detailed accounts of their lives.

This week I want to look at rural life, for that is where most people lived. At least theoretically, country folk could have enjoyed a better standard of living due to their “access to abundant commons – land, water, forests, livestock and robust systems of sharing and reciprocity,” which the anthropologist Jason Hickel praised in a recent article in The Guardian. In fact, the life of a peasant was, in some important aspects, worse than that of a city dweller.

Before industrialisation, European society was bifurcated between a small minority of the very rich and the vast majority of the very poor. Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a military engineer during the reign of Louis XIV, estimated that the French population consisted of 10 per cent rich, 50 per cent very poor (fort malaise), 30 per cent near beggars and 10 per cent beggars. Likewise, Francesco Guicciardini, an Italian historian and friend of Niccolò Machiavelli, wrote that “except for a few Grandees of the Kingdom [of Spain] who live with great sumptuousness, one gathers that the others live in great poverty”. . .